Chapter 25: To No Avail
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 25: To No Avail
"Big Charcoal, don't you have a companion named Griffin?"
Caught off guard by the question, Julius answered subconsciously.
"Yes, I came here with him..."
Suddenly, Julius realized something was wrong.
"He discussed it with me earlier. I was supposed to draw the Soul Guardian’s attention while he went to release all the souls..."
Julius looked up at Xie Bai.
"If nothing went wrong, he should be just about finished by now."
Hearing this, Xie Bai immediately whipped her head toward the graveyard.
A torrent of resentment surged from the cemetery, dyeing the entire sky a foul, blood-red hue.
"Oh no, my ending!"
It was obvious. The Alchemist's Resentment, which Xie Bai needed to progress the plot, had been prematurely unearthed.
Almost instantly, Julius charged into the Dark Space. He had to stop his colleague right now.
BOOM!
The ground shattered.
The Gray Horse Knight’s giant spear slammed deep into the earth. After spotting the intruder, the knight wrenched the spear free and leveled it at him.
"Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!"
His extreme rage was loud enough to burst eardrums.
"Strange. Why didn't Julius hold him back?"
The man standing in the graveyard was indeed Griffin. According to the plan, Julius shouldn't have just stalled the Soul Guardian—he should have been capable of killing him.
So why was the Soul Guardian standing here perfectly fine?
Griffin didn't understand. And if the Soul Guardian was fine, where was Julius?
He got his answer a second later.
CRACK!
[-615,000,000!]
Julius’s fist sent Griffin flying instantly.
"Pugh—!"
Griffin spun through the air twenty-eight times before crashing violently through the graveyard fence. Before he could even scramble to his feet, a blade of pitch-black energy surged toward him.
"Julius! What are you doing? Are you trying to defect?!" Griffin roared in fury.
Just as the black sword-light was about to strike Griffin, a magic circle manifested in mid-air. It twisted the trajectory of the energy, redirecting it.
The entire process happened in a flash. By the time anyone could react, Julius’s black energy had struck the mass of resentment in the sky.
[-24,600,000,000!]
[Dungeon BOSS: Alchemist's Resentment has been slain.]
[The sleeping souls of the Abandoned Village have been unsealed.]
[Special Ending Achieved: To No Avail.]
Hum—!
The moment the Resentment died, a massive tide of souls erupted from beneath the earth. Simultaneously, a giant golden film draped itself over the entire village.
Even more terrifyingly, as each soul passed through the golden film, it was transformed into a different creature.
[Holy Undead Soldier Lv.80]
In an instant, the land was carpeted with dense ranks of golden undead. They covered every inch of the ground like a field of blooming chrysanthemums.
Witnessing this magnificent sight, Griffin began to laugh like a madman.
"Ha... haha... Hahahaha!!!"
"I did it! I did it! I actually did it!"
"Julius, look! Look at this!"
"What a beautiful sight!"
"I originally planned to ask for your help in killing the Resentment, but it seems it didn't make a difference in the end."
"I don't know why you tried to stop me, Julius, but it doesn't matter. I should thank you regardless."
"I’ve finally succeeded! The world's greatest forbidden creation—the Holy Undead Army—has finally been born!"
Watching the raving Griffin, Julius turned to the Gray Horse Knight.
"Gray Horse Knight, just how many souls are under this ground? How can there be so many? This is far more than a single village should have."
The Gray Horse Knight hesitated before answering.
"This village has existed for thirty million years. When I first arrived, there were already over a hundred thousand lost souls here."
"Though this place is remote and hidden by the mist, a few outsiders still stumble in every year. They die here and become lost souls."
"Accumulated over thirty million years, the total number of lost souls has reached the hundreds of millions."
"Even if some souls completely collapsed into ordinary undead over time, there are at least a hundred million left."
"Originally, all of this was meant to be an offering to..."
The Gray Horse Knight trailed off at the end.
Hearing the staggering estimate, even the powerful Julius felt a headache coming on.
He could forcibly destroy a few Holy Undead Soldiers using his power of Destruction, but if the numbers were this vast, even he couldn't solve it. They were facing a number that inspired nothing but despair.
The Gray Horse Knight was clearly panicked by the scene as well.
The village was quite large, covering about six square kilometers. Based on the current density of the golden undead, if the entire village was filled, there were already about five million of them.
While five million was small compared to the total pool of a hundred million souls, it was still an astronomical scale. Furthermore, every single golden undead was an "over-spec" existence. One was hard enough to deal with; five million was unthinkable.
Both the Gray Horse Knight and Julius stood there, at a loss. The knight's panic was understandable, but Julius...
"Hey, warrior of the Chaos Church, what are you afraid of? Isn't your creed to destroy the world?"
"Now that these immortal golden undead have appeared, shouldn't you be happy that you can finally destroy the world?"
Julius didn't bother hiding his thoughts. "Our Chaos Church does indeed wish for such things, but the current problem isn't the Holy Undead."
The Gray Horse Knight was stunned. "If it's not these terrifying undead, then what is the problem?"
As soon as the question left his mouth, the knight remembered someone.
"You mean..."
Julius looked at the Gray Horse Knight and nodded.
"Yes. Her."
Not far away, Griffin saw the two of them talking instead of attacking. He assumed they had given up all resistance and began to mock them without restraint. He was so far gone he had lost all reason.
"How is it, Julius? Isn't it spectacular? Compared to your self-righteous strength, this undead army is true power!"
"You looked so desperate to stop me, but it was useless! I still succeeded! You couldn't protect anything! Nothing at all!"
"Everything you did was a futile effort! Meaningless! You look like a failing clown right now—it’s hilarious!"
"Now, I shall lead these Holy Undead out to conquer those pathetic worlds! This is a feat even the Cult Leader never accomplished!"
"Now, even the Cult Leader will fear me, dread me, and submit to me! And you... you're nothing more than a stray dog I can kick to death whenever I please!"
Hearing Griffin insult the Cult Leader, Julius flew into a rage.
"Griffin, you bastard! You really never respected the Cult Leader from the start. You've been planning your betrayal all along!"
Griffin couldn't have cared less about Julius’s anger.
"So what? A loser who couldn't conquer the world after leading the Chaos Church for five hundred years... I stopped caring about him long ag—"
Suddenly, an out-of-place voice rang in Griffin's ear.
The voice was delicate and youthful, yet it struck a chord of primal terror deep within Griffin's soul.
"So... are those your last words?"
Griffin spun around instantly.
"Who!?"
Through his chaotic vision, Griffin thought he saw a white-haired girl. She held a massive scythe aloft, looking like the God of Death coming to claim a soul.
Before Griffin could say another word, the girl swung the scythe of death down upon him.
[-65,827,000,000]
[-65,827,000,000]
[-65,827,000,000]
[-65,827,000,000]
[Griffin Lv.87 has been slain.]
Griffin took four hits of damage in an instant, each one a terrifying burst that far exceeded his total health. There was no possibility of survival; he was permanently deleted.
At the same time, a massive-scale Echo centered on Griffin’s position swept across the entire village.
Carrying the terrifying weight of over sixty billion damage, it began a frantic slaughter of every single Holy Undead.
In an instant, the abandoned village, which had been silent for countless years, welcomed its own grand fireworks display.